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Before we get into the details, I just wanted to extend a big “THANKS” to all of you who are not only Footballguys, but also supporters of the content that I produce every week. As I fire up another Thanksgiving Day edition of “Tips and Picks,” I feel obliged to thank you for all of the sincere support you provide over the NFL season each year.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

TIPS...

*Just as this article was being finished, RapSheet announced that the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game is now postponed until Sunday due to COVID-related issues in the Ravens' clubhouse. DraftKings followed up shortly thereafter by stating that the Thanksgiving slate will be converted to a two-game contest with all players from the Ravens-Steelers receiving a zero. DO NOT ROSTER ANY PLAYER FROM THE RAVENS-STEELERS!*

In terms of how this affects my approach to the slate, I am likely to lessen my overall investment on the afternoon. Cutting the player pool by 33% on a day where there was already limited options from which your opponents could make mistakes only serves to tighten up the distribution of players. As a result, the difference between winning and losing could come down to a random, low-rostered wide receiver (i.e., fluky touchdown catch by James Washington or Devin Duvernay), which is not how I want to invest my bankroll.

My advice is to find a single-entry (or 3-max entry) contest with a higher buy-in and build a lineup that you like. I will likely go from 150 lineups in the Milly Maker ($3,000 total buy-in) plus other random lineups in additional contests to a singular lineup in the $1,500 entry GameChanger. The latter cuts my investment by at least half, evens the playing field (single-entry contest), results in a less top-heavy contest, and gives me a bit of action to help digest my Thanksgiving meal. I would recommend that you do something similar within the limits of your respective bankroll.

Thursday AM edit: DAndre Swift is now reportedly trending towards being inactive, which leaves us with Adrian Peterson and/or Kerryon Johnson to roster against the Texans. At this stage, this slate is an absolute shell of what it was yesterday at this time. My advice has evolved from: 1) enjoy the slate, to 2) cut back your investment and play a few lineups, to 3) focus on Captain Showdown slates...preferably single entry and/or 20-entry max. If you have never played Captain Showdown, the best advice I can provide is to avoid getting too 'fancy' at your Captain position--only players with high upside should be considered. From there, build around that player via your envisioned gamescript and slot in a player you think could score, but will go overlooked by the masses (i.e., Quintez Cephus, Jordan Akins, Dalton Schultz are a few examples).

Pick your poison. In order to win a GPP on Thanksgiving, you are going to need at least one, possibly two, players who do well, but are also less than 10% owned. Because of the limited player pool, there will be a dozen players or more who are owned in the double-digit levels, which means that the overlap is going to be immense; the only way to differentiate your roster from the masses is to take a chance on a player you believe to be low-owned and in a situation to perform well. A few of my favorite options can be found in the “Picks” section below--they are highlighted in each of the tables. Please note that you need only one, possibly two, of these players to differentiate your rosters. Do not feel compelled to play more than one or two in any given roster.

Do not spend all of your salary. Part of the above advice (“Pick your poison”) is to purposefully build diversity into your lineups using players with perceived low ownership. Another way to achieve this goal is to leave a bit of salary on the table; do not be afraid to leave ~ 10-15% ($5,000 to $7,500) of your allocated salary unspent if you like your roster enough. Doing so will ensure that you have a unique roster that is capable of finishing atop a GPP roster. This bit of advice, of course, assumes that the rosters we are describing have enough upside to actually finish at the top of a tournament--do not leave money on the table just to start players who are seeing < 50% of the teams’ offensive snaps.

...AND PICKS

On a limited slate such as this, you are probably not going to like your resultant rosters because there just are not enough quality options in the player pool to build out a solid team. Instead, you should be thinking about building a core of key players and then supplementing around those players with secondary options, who you perceive to be in plus situations. For GPP lineups, you might drop to a tertiary threshold, whereby you add an element of consideration to ownership for those players who have upside relative to their respective salaries. The following section will briefly summarize those situations for the most relevant players on Thursday, which is followed up by a table that outlines those takes in a concise fashion. Best of luck!

Quarterbacks

In his last game against the Football Team, Andy Dalton threw for only 75 yards before getting concussed and missing the next two weeks. He returned last week and threw three touchdowns en route to a road victory against the Vikings. He gets a chance for redemption against Washington on Thanksgiving and is certainly equipped with an arsenal of weapons to accomplish the task. To be fair, Washington (4th DVOA versus pass) is not a pushover defense--they have allowed the 12th fewest fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks and 4th fewest fantasy points to opposing running backs, but it is the latter point that makes Dalton an intriguing play. If Washington is able to contain Ezekiel Elliott, who is projected to land on approximately half of tournament lineups, Dalton and his bevy of cheap receivers become excellent leverage plays against the masses on a limited slate. Meanwhile, Deshaun Watson is arguably the best overall play at the position because of how his receivers match up against the Lions' 23rd-ranked DVOA pass defense. With the pending popularity of Brandin Cooks and Will Fuller (both close to 50% rostered), Watson, himself, is going to end up in probably half of all tournament lineups. Because this game has some real fire-power, it is stackable from top-to-bottom and Watson deserves consideration therein. Elsewhere, it was somewhat surprising to see that Ben Roethlisberger's percent-rostered projections are somewhat low comparative to the field. As our Phil Alexander outlined on the Thanksgiving Edition of the PowerGrid, the Steelers are throwing the ball a lot more of late and not necessarily because they are playing from behind; if that continues to be the motis operandi in Pittsburgh, Big Ben is an intriguing tournament option with his talented receiver pool and low projected popularity. After Roethlisberger, it's a fairly dramatic dropoff to the remaining options. Lamar Jackson is certainly talented, but his receivers leave a lot to be desired and his matchup against the league's best defense (1st in fantasy points allowed to both quarterbacks and running backs). If you want to roll with Jackson, his best stacking option is Mark Andrews, but I also like Dez Bryant for reasons discussed in the 'wide receivers' section. As for Matthew Stafford and Alex Smith, you are advised to go underweight on both of them. While Alex Smith helped this author pull down a decent-sized GPP win two weeks ago, it's tough to envision him blowing up this limited slate to deliver a tournament win; ditto Stafford, whose lingering thumb issue is a concern, particularly when it would appear that Thanksgiving could be renamed "DAndre Swift Day" based on his matchup.

Running Backs

The early game (Houston @ Detroit) has the highest Vegas total (51 points) because it features two underperforming defenses across from competent offenses. In fact, this game features the 30th- and 32nd (aka last)-ranked defenses against running backs (in terms of fantasy points allowed per game), which makes both DAndre Swift and Duke Johnson Jr intriguing for tournament play. Of the two, Swift is the clear favorite to deliver both a solid floor and upside given his recent performances against Washington (25.9 DK points) and Jacksonville (30.3 DK points). Houston has allowed 60% of their opponents to surpass 150 rushing yards to this point in the season, which further bolsters Swift's upside in this contest. As for Duke Johnson Jr, he represents a difficult trigger to pull after failing to deliver 100 rushing yards total in his previous three games, but he cannot be ignored against a Lions defense that has yielded two-touchdown games to five different running backs this season. In the mid-afternoon game, Zeke Elliott is going to get plenty of attention in DFS contests, but Washington's underrated defense is one to respect--they have allowed only one rushing touchdown since their Week #8 bye and only a one 100-yard rusher across the whole season (Nick Chubb, 108 yards in Week #3). Elliott certainly brings upside to the table each week, but given his popularity and tough matchup, there is merit in consideration of fading him to some degree. On the other side of the field, Antonio Gibson has scored on five occasions over the past month, but the player who could make a difference in large-field tournaments on DraftKings is J.D. McKissic, who would benefit from Dallas jumping out to an early lead in this contest. Since Alex Smith took over at quarterback, the Football Team is 1-2. In their two losses, McKissic has 29 targets in the passing game due to Smith's propensity to dump off passes to avoid sacks. With Dallas instilled as three-point home favorites, McKissic has sneaky upside and could end up on only 10-15% of tournament rosters. In the night game, Gus Edwards is immediate chalk with both Mark Ingram and J.K. Dobbins going on the COVID list; Edwards should have the bulk of the Ravens' backfield opportunities to himself unless we hear that Justice Hill will get a bigger role heading into Thursday. The matchup, however, is tough against the Steelers' top-rated rush defense (fantasy points per game allowed), so handle your exposure accordingly. Across from Edwards is James Conner, perhaps the most intriguing option of all. Without their best run-stoppers in Calais Campbell and Brandon Williams over the past two weeks, the Ravens have allowed back-to-back 100-yard rushing performances from Damien Harris (22/122/0) and Derrick Henry (28/133/1); as of the writing of this article (Wednesday afternoon), Campbell is still not practicing and Williams finds himself on the COVID "close contact" list, which means that both could miss this game. THURSDAY AM EDIT: DAndre Swift is looking unlikely to play per Adam Schefter. This means that we will see a split of Adrian Peterson and Kerryon Johnson against the Texans' awful rush defense. In their 20-0 shutout loss to Carolina last week, Adrian Peterson started off as the starter, but it was Kerryon Johnson who got the majority of snaps out of the backfield once the Lions were in catchup mode. Peterson is slightly more expensive ($4.7K) than Kerryon ($4.3K) and more likely to see action in the redzone, but recognize he is risky if the Texans get ahead in this game, which is a real possibility with the Lions running out a skeleton crew of second-tier players.

Wide Receivers